February 18, 2006

Sacramento: Guaranteed to Flood

According to flood experts, St. Louis and Sacramento are the two most-likely metropolitan areas in the U.S. to see flooding disasters, mostly due to increased development in regions flooded by ten feet or more of water in the last century, surrounded by insufficient levees. In fact, according to one UC Davis professor, there stands a better than 2 in 3 chance that in the next 50 years, there will be a "catastrophic levee failure" in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

He says, "In California we know we have two kinds of levees -- those that have failed and those that will fail. We are reinventing Katrina all over again."

In addition to over-crowding and under-planning, the Sacramento region is particularly vulnerable due to seismic activity native to California, and increased warming, which is promising heavier storms coming in from the Pacific Ocean.